ECON-DIT

Words by Mahya Panahkhahi

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ This is how Jane Austen begins her infamous novel, Pride and Prejudice. From the opening line it becomes pretty clear that the novel is about love, but just like most romantic stories set in 19th century England, it is also very much about money.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, it revolves around the Bennet family, with Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) Bennet, the second eldest of five sisters, being the main protagonist of the novel. The Bennets are a wealthy English family, but thanks to old inheritance laws, in the event of Mr Bennet’s death, his estate will not pass onto any female family members. Instead, it will revert back to his male cousin, Mr Collins. Because the Bennet property is entailed, it also means that Mr Bennet cannot sell the property and divide it amongst his immediate family members to guarantee their financial security. Thus, after Mr Bennet’s death, the sisters will only be left with a share in the £5,000 that their mother brought into the marriage. Consequently, Mrs Bennet is determined for her daughters to marry soon, and to marry such that they secure their financial future.

As expected, an intelligent and beautiful young woman such as Lizzy has quite a few suitors, an unfavourable one being Mr Collins. The most promising bachelor, however, is Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. Charming, handsome, (and noticeably rich), Mr Darcy seems like the perfect suitor for Lizzy, but she initially finds him arrogant and unpleasant. Nevertheless, (spoiler alert) the two end up together at the conclusion of Jane Austen’s flawless depiction of an enemies-to-lovers romance.

I would never dare suggest that Lizzy married for money, because she evidently married for love, and if she was in pursuit of money, she would not have rejected Mr Darcy’s first proposal. However, readers can see that Lizzy got very lucky, and it becomes easy to understand why Mr and Mrs Bennet had no objections to Mr Darcy, once we view his wealth with a modern lens.

Readers are made aware that Mr Darcy has an annual income of £10,000, with Mr Bennet’s annual income being around £2,000. In the event that Mr Bennet passes away before his daughters are married, they are each likely to receive an equal share of their mother’s £5,000, which would bring Lizzy’s total wealth to £1,000. Mr Collins estimates that Lizzy would make a 4-5% return on her wealth, making her income as an unmarried woman a mere £40 to £50 per year. From this, it is evident that Mr Darcy is significantly wealthy, but how does his affluence translate into someone living in 21st century Australia?

There are a few different methods of approaching this question. One way of ascertaining the worth of Mr Darcy’s wealth today is to examine the value of his relative income, which involves consideration of a person’s income in relation to GDP per capita, or their income in relation to average income. Using the latter measure (and an online relative value calculator), it can be estimated that Mr Darcy’s £10,000 annual salary in 1810 would translate to £9,500,000 in 2021, which equates to approximately

16,500,000 Australian dollars. Admittedly, these values are not the most accurate and would vary depending on a range of factors, including the exact year the novel is set in, and the exchange rates used for calculating the Australian equivalent, but the approximations do make one thing crystal clear: Mr Darcy was undoubtedly wealthy. With this in mind, we can understand why Mrs Bennet would have been very satisfied to see her daughter marry Mr Darcy.

The England in which Lizzy and Mr Darcy lived was a society entrenched with economic inequality. Lizzy was lucky because the love of her life happened to be very wealthy, but in a day and age where a woman could only obtain wealth through inheritance or marriage, most had no choice but to marry rich in order to gain financial security, and so some pursued financially driven marriages, in which love had no place. And not every character in Pride and Prejudice was as fortunate as Lizzy. Charlotte Lucas, Lizzy’s best friend, suddenly and unexpectedly married Mr Collins, and later admitted to Lizzy that the marriage was necessary as she was getting older (only 27!) and Mr Collins could provide her with financial comfort.

There is no doubt that there still exist people who marry for money, but it is hoped that there would be fewer such people in a society where there is less economic inequality (albeit we all know it still exists). Nevertheless, it is clear why Pride and Prejudice is a timeless classic, with its central themes of love and money still very much applicable over 200 years later.